


History Doesn't Punish Enough

by asimplewalk



Series: Prompt Jar [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Discussion of Rape, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:11:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3411875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asimplewalk/pseuds/asimplewalk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy hasn't been able to talk about the most painful secret she's got, and then her activism makes it hard not to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Doesn't Punish Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bulmaveg_Otaku](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulmaveg_Otaku/gifts).



> For [bulmavegotaku](http://www.bulmavegotaku.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who prompted me for a wintershock "political demonstration au, or not au if you feel like it." Unbeta'd. All mistakes and story are mine, characters and setting belonging to Marvel.  
> I missed the walk, but a friend of mine got harassed when she had gone. I would have absolutely gotten arrested and maced for beating the cockwaffle's face in.

Darcy is covered in glitter and poster paint and marker, but whatever she had been making has been carefully cleaned up, and the plastic sheet she was untaping from the floor was the last of the precautions taken to protect the lovely wood flooring in her apartment in the Avengers Tower. She manages PR for the team in her spare time, and most of the rest of her time is either spent sleeping, serving Pepper Potts as the CEO’s PA, or happily trawling through the internet and munching on whatever food she can steal from what others have made or ordered. And making all sorts of ridiculous craft projects spark her interest, regardless of what else she is doing.

The fruits of her crafts project are already hidden away somewhere, and Bucky can’t spot them to try and get a peek without being found out. “Hey there, darlin’.” He grins at her, and waits until she looks up to offer her a hand off the floor. 

“You know, I am so glad that you get the whole “knock before you enter” thing, because I am getting really tired of Jane, Thor, Selvig and Tony Freaking Stark busting in whenever to ask me something.” She reaches out both hands and he carefully grips her wrists as she does his to pull her up. 

“Here, lemme put that in the trash for ya, doll.” He goes to further crunch up the plastic and toss it, but she waves him off. 

“Nah, needs folded up so I can use it again. Things one and two can only manage so much craft time on their own.” She gestures to the two rhoombas that are franticly whirring around the living room, cleaning any wayward trace of her afternoon project. 

“Fair enough. Want some help?” She nods, so they are careful to keep the inside in and get it all lined up and tucked on itself in a neat square. It gets carried to the plastic tub of miscellaneous craft things. He knows she has another full of knitting looms and supplies for those kinds of crafts, and a third with the fake flowers and wire for flower crowns.  
He may own three of such accessories, because he can’t deny that she’s got an eye for matching colors for him and well, his girl is always so happy to see him wearing the things. And telling Stark that “I’m a pretty princess, fuck you.” before they have all had coffee on any day of the week is really satisfying.

He puts the tub away in the hall closet for her, and wants terribly to nose around the apartment and see what she made. She’s never one for hiding her finished products. Even ones that are gifts. “You normally do your messy projects in Stark’s lab. What’re you hiding from everyone, doll?” He says it teasingly, but she tenses up.

“Nothing. Just a thing that I needed to get it out of my system and didn't feel like lugging that tote farther than I needed to.” She says it too fast, nearly cuts off his words, and she is speaking too quickly. He slowly raises his hands in a placating measure. 

“Sure thing, pretty girl. What can I do to make you feel better?” He keeps his tone soft, and God, does he hate that sometimes she will get even more withdrawn than he does these days. 

Hell, he’d been through decades of torture, abuse, brainwashing, and conditioning, and he had all this help and support. Everyone forgot to focus on the girls, though.

“Can we, um.” She shakes her head and shivers before pulling her hair out of the bun it’s in.

“Are you gonna try and hide in all that hair, babe?” He ducks down, bends his knees a little, tips his head to one side to try and look at her eyes. “If I’m not allowed, why are you?”

This earns a bitter little laugh and she straightens up. “Can we sit and do something mindless tonight? I know you wanted to go out for dinner but I just. I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Of course, Darcy. Hey, no problem. You got the stuff for me to make something for you, then?” He carefully moves around her, heading into the kitchen for the fridge. 

“I think I have the stuff for kielbasa and macaroni and cheese.” Bucky hears her padding towards her bedroom even as she talks. She keeps her footfalls intentionally heavy the way he does. 

They sit down in front of the tv and she turns on an episode of Deadwood with bowls of the mixed ingredients, and it takes two episodes for her to warm up and sit curled against him.

-

She comes into the commons of Stark’s penthouse, Natasha and Hill on either side of her. Both women had left with fire in their eyes when the news of his girl being arrested had come in. Or so Clint, who had been stuck behind with a broken leg, had said while they had been out dealing with Doom Bots (“Shouldn’t the Four be handling this?”).

Bucky is standing there waiting and he immediately shucks out of his sweatshirt so that his girl can wear it when he spots them. Hill is holding a sign that says “MY DRESS IS NOT A YES” painted on it. Darcy is covered in glitter and paint again, but with black tear tracks and makeup smudged all over her face, and her shirt is torn up over the pretty bra she’s wearing. The blanket that the two women had covered her with immediately dropping from her shoulders. 

She is looking at none of them in the face, but the angry set of her jaw, the way that she’s not letting anyone touch her, the way she takes the jacket he tosses first to Natasha and slowly, carefully pulls it on, it is telling a clear story. She’s not going to take a single joke they crack lying down, she’s expecting a hell of a fight. 

“So, you want to explain why you were in an arrest line at a protest getting maced today?” Stark’s voice is clear as a bell, loud, and the teasing, curious tone makes Bucky want to put his metal hand up the smaller man’s ass to rip his lungs out.

“I beat the shit out of a guy heckling and getting handsy with one of the other girls. He wouldn’t stop.” Her eyes won’t meet anyone’s. “It was supposed to be about empowerment raising awareness, about culling that myth that the way you’re dressed has any bearing on-, and there he was, grabbing parts of her that he had no business with and calling her every shitty name under the sun.”

The air feels stale in his lungs, and everyone must immediately feel the same way as Bucky suddenly does. Startled, gutted, angry. Steve, who is so against bullies, assholes, and abusers on principle that Bucky’d had to pull his ass out of the fire several times daily, for nearing two decades (that they had been conscious for), bristled. “So they arrested you for giving him what he deserved? Did you get their badge numbers?” 

Darcy laughs and it’s all teeth, cold. “Hard to with all the stuff they sprayed in my face.”

“Well, good thing I have some amazing lawyers. Because I’d hate for my assistant to get caught up in a bunch of legal garbage that she doesn’t need.” Pepper has taken her heels off, and quietly walks over to hand the girl a bottle of water. “Is there anything you need?”

“To just go to my apartment and rinse my eyes out forever.” They let her go when she beats a hasty retreat.

Bucky has zero idea what to do. “Do I follow her or, what?” He points to the elevator and then looks around at the others.

Behind him, Bruce quietly speaks up. “Give her a little space.Then go knock and ask. If she says no, then let her be. I’ll let Jane know to check on her, and I will too.” 

“Everyone else butt out about it.” Maria stares them all down, waiting for everyone’s nod.

-

Bucky gives it an hour and a half, then goes down to the floor that her apartment is on. Jane and Thor’s, and Maria’s also are down here, so he walks passed their doors to quietly rap his knuckles on the heavy wood. 

He waits patiently for her to open the door, and when she does, she still has on his hoodie. She’s also got on thick, soft felt pants that are printed with cartoony dinosaurs and a thick pair of socks that he’s pretty sure that she might have knitted for herself. “I’m okay.”

“I never questioned that you would be. I just wanted to know if there was anything you’d like me to do. Or if you wanted some space for a few days.” She’d always respected that for him, and they’d long ago agreed to let the other know what they needed.

“No, I think…” She’s still not looking him in the face, but her hair isn’t in her eyes. “Jarvis, let everyone know that he’ll be hanging out with me, and that everyone else can calm down and buzz off.” She leaves the door open and pads away, going to drop onto the couch.

He closes the door gently behind him, and despite his sock feet and grace, he still thumps across the wood. Goes and gets a glass of water, then to sit on the far side of the couch.  
She turns the tv down, twists in her body so that her feet are in his lap. He immediately obliges and begins to rub at them. “So, two days before graduating high school, I was raped by one of the varsity linebackers.” She says it firmly, matter of fact. He keeps his mouth shut, and lets her talk, “The cops told me that I shouldn’t have been partying with everyone, that I shouldn’t have been drinking underage or dressed in so little.”

“I had run next door to the house that a party was going on at to borrow someone’s phone, try and find one of my friends, after he broke in to raid our fridge. He was drunk and high from that damn same damn party. I had been wearing a long sundress and he was so big that I couldn’t do anything about it. No one believed me, or they blamed me for it.” She is all wrapped up in her memories for a moment. 

“I was tired of it, and when I got the chance, I started going to events like this as soon as they cropped up. Went to support groups to talk with teens. It was the one thing I never could tell anyone about. Participating in the Occupy movement, doing walks for special needs and cancer, protesting the mutant registration laws, yeah, I’ll talk ‘til I’m blue. I’ll scream and fight. But this, I couldn’t talk about with a bunch of heroes.”

She shivers, and he just continues rubbing at her feet. She turns to watch the show she has on - Tiny Toon Adventures - for a while. 

He lets her, mulls over his thoughts, continues massaging her feet. 

“I won’t ever be able to take that pain away from you, Darcy. I won’t ever be able to remove that hurt, but I will be here to do whatever you need me to, should you ask.” He has to be careful of how he uses his left hand. Sometimes, he’ll press too hard or one of the plate joints will pinch, but he is happy to use it to soothe what tension from her he can.

“I love you, too.” She says it quietly. Turns to look at him. “So, there is a pride rally in a few weeks. You want to go with me?”

“If it’s going to keep you out of the fire, sure.” He says it in the same teasing tone he’d used with Steve since after that fourth fist fight, this one behind the butcher’s with the O’Keefe boys. Bucky can still remember his scrawny, angry blonde whining as Bucky set his nose and patched him up under Mrs. Rogers’ watchful eyes.

“Oh shut up, James.” He pinches the soft arch of her foot with his human hand. “Hey, be gentle with me, you cactus-fucker.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Bucky laughs and lets her crawl across the couch to flop against him. “May I have a kiss, dear?”

She smiles and presses her lips softly against his chin, and he returns it with one to the top of her head. “You I like. I think I’ll keep you around.”

“That’s nice to hear. So, you gonna explain for me what all I need to know to be ready for the rally?” He starts playing with her fingers when she tangles their hands together, body pretty much in his lap with his arms pulled around her. 

He’ll be her big bad defender as long as she’ll let him. And he’s plenty happy to support her and all the good things she stands behind, too.

**Author's Note:**

> My story is not terribly different from Darcy's, but I was much younger. It was hella cathartic to write this, and I'm sorry that this turned out hella darker than you were probably expecting, darlin'.
> 
> Come and howl at me over on [tumblr](http://www.crownsandashes.tumblr.com).


End file.
